


Hey, Jew

by alexa_please



Category: The Crooked Man (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexa_please/pseuds/alexa_please
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short one-shot regarding some of David's childhood based on small headcanons :^)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey, Jew

“Hey! There’s the Jew!”

“You’re not wearing the Star of David on your uniform today, David!”

“Ooooh!”

“We’ll take you to Auschwitz for that!”

“Lock him in the chamber!” called the oldest and prettiest of his tormentors, a sandy-haired girl in a ponytail and black sweater named Shirley. Her friend Marion immediately had her hands on David, constricting the rest of his body as if the distress in his chest wasn’t enough to freak him out.

He’d gotten away, in the past, with nuisances as small as a swastika drawn in Sharpie on his pencil case. Unfortunately, he could see from here today wouldn’t be as easy.

“Gas the Jews!” Marion giggled. _“Schnell! Schnell!”_

“Do you think he even speaks German?”

“Of course, Shirley! He has to! He’s Jewish!” 

Marion forcefully crammed his fragile figure into the stall, where his hip made sharp and painful contact with the toilet. When he struggled, she punched him in the lip. “Strip!” she ordered. “Jews are supposed to strip before getting gassed!”

The door was ajar, yet escape was made impossible by the two girls. They were blocking his one exit. David let out an involuntary squeak as they continued to saturate his face and body with perfume that didn’t even smell that great to begin with.

“Take off your clothes!” they chanted.

“What! No!” David coughed, shielding himself with his bare forearms. “Leave me alone! G-g-go away!”

The hysterical laughter reached its peak. One girl reached for his shirt, beginning to pry it off.

_“Stop!”_

“I’ll do it myself,” Marion gave up. The shirt came off too easily for David’s pride to make it out alive. He wriggled away, but she still managed to unbutton his jeans.

“Hey, Jew,” Shirley said. “Why don’t you start praying?”

There was a pop, and the next he knew his face was doused in cold liquid. Despite being quick enough to close his eyes just before it hit him, he could almost feel himself going blind. The empty perfume bottle dropped to the ground, exploding into a thin layer of crystal, and with that final spot of entertainment the girls left, still laughing.

There wasn’t anything he could do to help himself. Hives were beginning along his arms now, and he couldn’t breathe, and his head pounded with a hindering headache. To make matters worse, those creepy teenagers had gotten away with his shirt.

The recess bell rang outside, and the playground gradually slipped to silence as the rest of the sixth graders left to class. He didn’t have the strength to move. He felt like he’d throw up all over himself and his lungs were as good as two popped balloons.

Where were his jeans? He dimly fumbled a hand in search of his clothes, but all he discovered was the wet bathroom floor and shards of broken bottle.

“David! DAVID!”

The bathroom shook with the sound of approaching footfalls. David didn’t have to look to know it was Paul, and that he was angry.

Paul was his best mate, though they’d only met this year. He knew well about the Jew-thing, but he’d never intervened until now.

“Dude I saw them dumb girls with your shirt comin’ out of the boys’ bathroom David! Are you okay! What the hell happened!”

David blinked blearily, his friend’s concern coming into focus little by little. He was kneeling down in the mess, holding David’s arm, seemingly ignorant to the glass digging into his bare knees.

“…Woah, why you in your underwear?” Paul cried, bemused. He reached over and handed David his jeans.

David tried to laugh it off. Instead, he fell to a coughing fit, every breath rattling his brain painfully. He felt Paul clapping his back several times.

“Are you okay—? Sorry…Hey, um, put on your pants, please.”

David fought to get them on, and when he did, Paul helped him stand. It was hard to revel in the comfort of a friend when the entirety of his exterior crawled with what felt like that irritated piece of eczema inside his elbow.

“…David, what did they do to you?” Paul said dramatically as he sat his friend at the sink, where he began scrubbing the perfume from David’s arms. “Did they touch you? Or take pictures? Y’know? That ain’t legal. They can get in trouble.”

“It’s okay,” David choked. “They only took my shirt.”

Paul looked annoyed—“Then that’s called _stealing_ , you pansy”—but when he finished cleaning up he draped his jacket around David. “All right then! Let’s go tell teacher!”

“I can’t.”

“Why not!?”

“Mom will say a couple of bullies shouldn’t stop me from religion,” David gulped. He could scarcely breathe.

“Who said you’re gonna stop believing in Jewishness if we tell teacher?”

“She’ll yell at me and tell me this happened because I need to repent and then once she makes me repent she’ll tell me to move on because if the survivors of World War II can then I can.”

Paul sighed, pressing a wet paper towel to David’s bleeding lip. “Always such an easy target, aren’t ya? Fine, if you won’t tell teacher I will. She’s atheist anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> So I have the headcanon that David is Jewish (at least as child, but there's nothing in the game about his religion, really). I also headcanon that he used to be super small and runty...just for irony bc he's super tall as an adult ;; I'm sorry I made Marion and Shirley the bullies, they're not really that mean, but I didn't want to use Duke and it'd be sort of illogical to use D or Sissi uwu
> 
> I tried to stick as much to canon as I could..  
> David isn't really that big of a wimp...but yea...  
> Okay...thank you for reading reader. :u


End file.
